Project Management in Film Industry

Project Management in Film Industry

Introduction

Many people today have a new or renewed interest in project management. Until the 1980s,

project management primarily focused on providing schedule and resource data to top

management in military and construction industry. Today Project Management is very useful

software that can help various business organizations in various industries. It plays a very

important role in handling projects. It is used in almost all industries be it Marketing, Finance,

Logistics, Construction, Event Management etc.

Today's companies, government, non-profit organizations are recognizing that to be successful

they need to be conversant with and use modern management techniques. Individuals are

realizing that to be competitive, they must develop skills to become good project managers.

Many organizations claim that using project management provides certain advantages, such as:

Better control of financial, physical and human resource

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Improved customer relations

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Shorter development times

Lower costs

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Higher quality and increased reliability

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Improved productivity

Better coordination

Higher profit margins

The film industry is one of those industries where project management plays a very important

role. A film has greater chances of succeeding when applying project management in the

film-making process. The projects in film industry starts right from the pre-production of the

film to the time the film gets released and to make these films in profitable and successful

ways, project management is required. Making a film is a project because the production

has a beginning and an end, which occurs when the film, the resulting product, is completely

made. Thus, project management has always existed in the film industry. However, many

filmmakers in the past have not taken full advantage of using proper project management and

it is only until recently that the importance of managing film projects in a more professional and

systematic way has been realized.

Importance of Project Management

Scheduling

One of the most common purposes is to schedule a series of events or tasks and

the complexity of the schedule can vary considerably depending on how the tool is used. Some

common challenges include:

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Events which depend on one another in different ways or dependencies.

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Scheduling people to work on, and resources required by, the various tasks,

commonly termed resource scheduling.

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Dealing with uncertainties in the estimates of the duration of each task.

Providing information

Project planning software can be expected to provide information to various people or

stakeholders, and can be used to measure and justify the level of effort required to complete

the project(s). Typical requirements might include:

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Tasks list for people, and allocation schedules for resources.

Overview information on how long tasks will take to complete.

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Early warning of any risks to the project.

Information on workload, for planning holidays.

Evidence.

Historical information on how projects have progressed, and in particular, how actual

and planned performances are related.

Optimum utilization of available resource.

Cost Maintenance.

Cost-Effectiveness

Project management provides a roadmap for the journey of success. It is the greatest resource

that allows the manager to understand the available resources and the methods to use them

with the demands. Thus, with a plan in hand, it is easy to utilize the resources in the optimum

possible way. Project management, prior to launching a project, identifies the irrelevant costs,

reduces wastage of resources and thus ensures cost-effectiveness in the longer run.

Better Productivity

Trustworthy quality of products is a way of retaining the existing clientele and adding to the

same. Project management keeps the quality of products